First Draft - An Evening in the City

Scene 1:

I place the letter on His desk and wait for him to call me in. I wait for the next 4 hours. He leaves the office. Dhaval says it's done. You're free. And vacuum occupies my head. I walk to the station thinking why He didnot address me.

Scene 2:

The crowd rushes inside the compartment as the train halts in Dadar. The man in front of me (moving in) suddenly turns back, picks up his wallet and starts hitting the boy behind him. The train moves. The boy is brought to the centre of the compartment after 4 hard blows. Suddenly in an overly packed compartment, a human trap is made to punish the boy. People join in for slaps and punches - some elbowing, some kicking, some pinching, some tearing apart his hair. All have ideas: "Don't kill him", "Give him to the police", "Today is 27th, the last week of his pay back perhaps to his boss", "Throw him out"....They remove all his clothes and throw them out of the running train.

Scene 3:

The person besides me makes himself almost uncomfortable to see the boy naked, crying and pleading. They laugh as he accepts his crime. All decide to throw him out of the moving train. I remove one earphone from my ear - now listening to multiple sounds. Another man consoles the man who was being pick-pocketed and indicates him to stop beating the boy. The man enjoying the breeze on the footboard on the other end of the compartment directs the side on which the platform should appear. They wait until Andheri arrives and throw the boy naked on the platform.

Scene 4:

In an overly packed compartment, more people gush in, laughing, joking, talking, pushing...They talk about the whole racket - the trade. While they have already forgotten about the boy, and filled their minds with their own everyday insecurities, I secure my wallet. Putting back the earphone in my second ear, I listen to myself. I wonder if I had an opinion on the boy, on the act... The song fades, and I stop it. And vacuum occupies my head. I walk to the bus station thinking why He did not address me...

Quotable quotes

Prasad Shetty...

on working:

"You must work with the masters. If they match to your imagination of them, then you always knew you were right, but if they dont, at least you know why they are'nt great."

on seeing:

"The way you see is the way you understand, the way you understand is the way you intervene."

on things:

"A chair is a chair is a chair"

on abstraction:

"We don't know everything about anything"

on presentation:

"Use the KISS rule - Keep it Short and Stupid (err), you can say Short and Simple. Try explaining it to your grandmother first."

on people:

"He/she's interesting!"

on writing:

"Make it crisp."

more shall be added later.

xxx

In catching up with our ideals, we lose ourselves.

Things to carry

This is a superbly handy list that akhil had prepared for himself during the Hampi tour.
The checklist is for all things you must carry while travelling.

(the cigarettes are a part of his personal things and can be omitted!)

Contraptions

Some sketches for the Street USB
(first year orientation workshop 2010)

a chance encounter between an umbrella and a sewing machine:

Mumbai Profiles

poster design: Anuj Daga

Great works (not equal to) great people

We mistakenly construct identities of architects by seeing their works. When we see great buildings, we feel their architects too must be great. But in this process of labeling, we seldom realize that it is the quality of the work that we assign the person, and it's not the evaluation of the person him/herself. What perhaps I am trying to argue is that qualities of work need not necessarily impersonate an individual. This construction of idols in such a manner is extremely deceitful.

But the society works by evaluating people through their works. You are a good (=useful) person if you can produce good (=useful) work. There is no humanities at work here. Environments are deals made in this realm of exchange of useful work (okay, I may be gross generalizing here). Nevertheless, what I can definitely say is that every building has so much of ruthlessness to itself. But it is all immediately covered up as the building is inaugurated. Would the financier of the biggest building allow its workmen to enter the premises once the building is finished? Never! The workmen will be shooed away as the red ribbon is cut.

Correa is not as human as his buildings. His buildings are "constructed" and therefore, his identity is constructed.

Why I am thinking of all this? Because I am realizing the difference between 'great people' and 'great buildings' - and I am wondering if places must have more of great people or great buildings?

Untitled

These thoughts occur to me as I see and listen to this song:

And I wonder if my fascination with Muslim culture is because it being the "other" or with its mysticism or what? If I was to trace my association with Islamic culture, I could string together a lot of things. Perhaps the biggest share would be that I went to a school which had a Muslim Management. I did not understand them as the "other" till the 1993 riots.

But as I relate with their culture today, it seems to me that there is a lot of 'respect' in the culture - what we call 'adab' waali bhaasha - urdu, uff...you almost fall in love with it. Even the burqa / purdah has originally been a respectful custom - and this song so beautifully brings it out.

When I was young, I used to love watching Alif Laila - translated in English as Arabian Nights. Although it was very badly produced and directed, what fascinated me was the myriad magical experiences it gave me as a kid. I would wait for the protagonist of the stories to perform 'jaadu' and wait for revelation of spaces beyond unaccessible regions - it was totally fascinating. Also how can we forget the Prince of Persia that we played as kids, and defeating Jaffar - the villian in the computer game. But this also connects to Aladdin and Persia - another world to live in.

And some days back, I also listened to Rumi - and it was so soothing. Rumi creates a space around you. I think I have trailed enough in this blogpost and almost travelled the journey of Islam's passage to our country. the above song beautifully encapsulates the 'muslim' youngster and his romantic encounter within his 'closed' community. I love the slow movement of the video from him being a stranger to a lover....it is soft and likable. And the song adds to the softness.

Sometimes I wonder if I would be able to live in such surroundings (the "other")? how about falling in love like that? Don't quite know...

Kohinoor Mills

Photo Courtsey: Pranit Rawat

It's interesting how all the mill lands want to be secretive about themselves.

If the mills in the city were opened up, how wonderful it would be to understand another kind architecture that pervaded the city, that anchored life in the city. Large volumes, wide column free spaces, huge machines, loud noise, sharp shadows, big steel members - we see none of it today!

What was the industry? What is it to be in an industry (mill)? What is it like to work in a mill - in a place where the roof is 20 times above you, generously and you are handling a big monster - the machine...
Today, we see these houses of 'monsters' only through cracks in the wall, unaligned gaps in the gates and google maps. Why cant these spaces be opened for study? What if these places just became museums and still fetched huge money? Can machines be adapted for malls? Perhaps they could become sculptures - like the follies in Parc De La Vilette (Bernard Tshcumi)...

Anyway, I asked Pranit to construct an imagination of what he thinks is inside - since it is like some other world which one can not enter. Seeing this picture, it feels that this watchman is the guardian of the Garden of Earthly Delights - the Kohinoor! The Kohinoor remains unraveled and hidden for the inhabitants of the city. Makes for a perfect metaphor to the precious stone that remains unclaimed and alien to our place...

Sex / Gender

I learnt the essential difference between Gender and Sex today:
Sex is something biological. We are born with it.
Gender is a social function. It depends on the way you are brought up.

What it implies is that
Not acknowledging eunuchs as an alternative sex is a grave issue.
On the contrary, a woman may have different expectations with planning versus a man. (Gender issue)

I kept mixing sex and gender in my argument on "why should there be separate seats for separate sexes in buses, or separate compartments in trains". Today it is clear to me that these divisions are social and not biological. Thus, where I may argue that women are equally physically capable as men, the difference is only that the society doesnot see them as so. Thus it is a gender problem, and not of the sex.
However, Gender is a construct of Sex. In simpler words, Gender is a subset of sex. And this creates a lot of problems - the problems of perception, the issues of trans-genders, and so many more. In our times, gender is trying to become the universal set. Thus there are cases of people wanting to change their identities (social construct) by transforming themselves biologically!

That's quite a backdoor entry!

But I think this definition becomes crucial in the understanding of Feminism, the discourse of the Body, etc. We shall be discussing this in our humanities class later this year. It will be exciting....